Business entities must create and maintain methods and systems for keeping track of work spaces, which are any areas used for conducting business. Large business entities (or “businesses”) must often organize and maintain large quantities of work spaces, which makes the tracking of work spaces complex and difficult. This task can increase even more in complexity if different types of work spaces are being tracked, such as office space, laboratory space, and manufacturing space.
Keeping track of work spaces requires tracking several specific types of information. The geographic features of the work space must be known. This includes the location of the building in which the space is located, the floor of the building on which the space is located, and the precise place on the floor of the building that the space is located. Further, the lay-out of the space must be known. In other words, it is necessary to know whether the space is set up, for example, as an office space, a laboratory space, or a manufacturing space. And finally, information on the specifics of the space must be available, such as what sort of business unit is utilizing the space and what types of equipment or furnishings are kept in the space.
A Cartesian coordinate system, based on principles of Euclidean geometry, can be used as a way to track the physical attributes of work spaces. Such a system has the advantage of reducing the work space to a graphical presentation that is easy to understand. A typical coordinate system simply breaks the space down into horizontal and vertical units, with each unit equidistant from the adjacent unit. Typical work place tracking systems present work space attributes pertaining only to a single building floor. Coordinate values are assigned based on the physical lay-out of the space. Specifically, coordinate values are assigned in a way that represents the absolute distances between spaces.
Oftentimes it would be useful for a business to be able to view all of its work space or a specific subset, such as all of its vacant space, in order to determine how best to handle an event such as a move, a merger, an expansion, or other business transaction that will somehow affect how the business utilizes its work spaces.